


choices

by tinysmallest



Category: Bendy and the Ink Machine
Genre: Gen, Lots of Abuse, bendy and the ink machine inkborne au, bendy king of stabbing himself in the foot, fuck you joey, inkborne au, same applies to abuse, sorry boris you're hella dead at the moment, there is referenced torture but no on-screen torture, this is my first ao3 fic so i have no idea what i'm doing pls have mercy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 10:38:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16952460
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinysmallest/pseuds/tinysmallest
Summary: Bendy decides to invite Alice over for a talk. Predictably, it doesn't go well.Inkborne au.





	choices

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this over a year ago for an au that I can't link to since the user deleted. Inkborne is a crossover between Bendy and the Ink Machine and Bloodborne, and at the time I wrote this it was mostly Batim in a Victorian setting. Lacked a lot of the insanity that was Bloodborne.
> 
> I was unsure of a lot of the information in this au as it was still in its very early stages, but I imagined Bendy and Alice's relationship to be much more strained here than many people were supposing their relationship was before the events of batim (which we know know isn't a thing so anyone who headcanons the toons having existed before the events of the game are in solid au territory, themselves) and so this was born.
> 
> The creator's deviantART handle is twisted-wind and their Twitter is FlappyBat, both of which I will link to whenever I figure out how links work on this site.

He sat under the tree high up on the manor grounds, staring out over the decaying city. Seemed like just a short time ago that the Ink took over. But his view of the passage of time had always been weird. Maybe it had something to do with being a demon. Yeah, that was probably it, right?

Man, it was a good thing Joey’s ancestor had decided that a regular plot of land wouldn’t do; he had to build the manor on an area built up on top of a cliff overlooking the town like a show-offy jackass. Whatever mess was going on below wouldn’t actually reach here, if ever, and thank god.

Now if only his grandstanding ancestor had built the manor on the taller mesa instead of the smaller one. So much would have been avoided if escape had been possible from this miserable town, but the sheer cliff of the taller mesa back beyond the manor grounds meant that there was no other way out. Why was this entire stupid town in what was basically a fucking bowl of land?

Ugh, this was not the mood he wanted to be in for this meeting. It was already going to suck enough without moping and fuming. Closing his eyes, he breathed in and out for a few minutes, but the sound of wings quickly drew them open.

Alice was here.

She landed several feet away from him, the delicate magic, threads of white sprouting from her back into some overly decorative wing design, slowly folding back up into her back from whence it came. She nodded a curt, polite greeting.

Bendy, however, was not much for politeness. “Surprised you came.”

Her mouth puckered into a frown as she lifted the veil covering her face. “You asked. I saw no problem with answering your request.”

“Why? Did they run out of praise for ya?” He didn’t even bother trying to hide the sullenness from his voice. So much for trying to start this off on neutral grounds.

“If you just drew me out here to insult me, I’ll leave.” She was having none of his shit today. When had she ever? Even back when what he’d had to say had been logical and reasonable, she hadn’t been interested in listening to him, oh no. He huffed, standing up and stretching the soreness from his muscles. Yeesh. He needed to stop falling asleep sitting up.

“Well? Why did you want to meet me?”

Yeah, being abrasive was seriously the wrong choice, but he’d made it. Whoops. “… I need yer help.”

“You have a funny way of asking for it.”

“Look, it’s been a rough-” Day? Week? Year? More like lifetime. Yeah, ‘lifetime’ sounded about right, but ‘week’ would be accurate, too. The dead horse he’d hauled back in chunks to the manor was all eaten now. He was back to eating squirrels. “-week.”

Deep breaths, Bendy. Because they worked so well last time. Augh.

“I wanna get outta this shithole. You can’t fly far but you got power; maybe you could help-”

“Absolutely not.”

Despite his preperations to hear that answer, a rock dropped into his stomach anyway. “Why the fuck not!? You’re strong! I’m strong!” Inexperienced despite his best attempts at not sucking, but strong! That counted for something, right? “The two of us together could ditch this place so fast our heads would spin! I don’ know what the world is like out there but god Alice, it’s gotta be better’n here!” Anywhere would be. _Anywhere._

Her face softened. Shit, he must look more pathetic than he’d meant to look. “… I’d help. I really would. But it’s dangerous, _significantly_ so. And I can’t risk my life when there are others depending on that life, much less actually leave the city with you.”

His face twisted into a scowl. This trash again? “They don’ _own you,_ Al. You don’ owe them jack.”

“I can protect them. If I can do it, I should, and I can, so I choose to.” Her words, calm and deliberate, held a match to a boiling pit of gas in his belly.

 _“I don’ understand!_ Why are ya doing this!?” he exploded, gesturing furiously to the hellscape below, covered in ink and blood and dead things and nightmares, and in the center, the tower of a chapel, the only place untainted by the evil of the Ink… but very much tainted with the evil called humanity. “Why is this so important to ya!? Don’ you realize yer literally playin’ right into Joey’s hands, here!?”

Her eyes widened with something he couldn’t entirely place, but he guessed might be fear. The hand that rose halfway to her mouth didn’t help her case if she wanted to pretend that accusation didn’t freak her out. “What… what do you mean?”

“He did this to ya, Al! He did-” he gestured at the thing that could possibly be considered a halo nailed into Alice’s head “-that! God, Al, he tortured you same as either’a us! And yer gonna just- go along with yer ‘purpose’ after all that!? He made ya to clean up _his_ mess, he fuckin’- nailed a thing into yer head so you could actually be equipped to clean up that mess, cause you ain’t a person, yer a tool to him! You know what he did to me! To Boris! You too! And yet yer jus’- gonna do what he wanted ya to do like a good little girl!? Like a goddamn chess piece!? He ain’t even here anymore! God knows where he fuckin’ slipped off to but there ain’t any ‘father’ to appease, Al!”

Her eyes, glazed during his tirade, cleared, and she didn’t so much fold her arms as she did hug herself, though her eyes remained on his. “Don’t misunderstand my intentions, Bendy. I don’t do what I do out of any love for Joey Drew. Or for his plans. This isn’t a seal of approval on anything he did to any of us, and I’m no puzzle piece of his, whatever he might think of all of this, if he’s even still alive somewhere.” Her eyes narrowed as she let go of herself, back straightening. “I do what I do because _I want to._ These people need protection, guidance, and healing. The city is overrun, has been for a long time now, and they’re scared. They need me and whether I like how I got these powers or not, I _have_ them. I may as well _use_ them.”

“Why you wanna do what they want any more than what Joey wants!?” The demon waved his hands in the air, as if he could swat away the ridiculousness of this like a fly. Or maybe he was just so full of emotion he needed to move. Probably some combination of the two. “Don’ you know that if they realized yer from the same origin point me and Boris are, they’d turn on ya!? Humans are fricking awful; I’d’ve _thought_ you’d’ve figured that out when they tortured and murdered Boris! Jus’ leave ‘em to rot; they’d’a done the same to us in our shoes! Who cares what their issues are!? Who cares if they all die off!?”

Something inside the angel hardened a touch and she leveled a stare at him. Bendy, undeterred as per usual, put his hands on his hips and tapped his foot. “Just because our father never loved us,” Alice said, eyes like daggers, “doesn’t mean we can’t love the world.”

“Why should I!? It ain’t ever loved _me!”_ The little demon returned her glare, hoping it drilled holes in her stupid head. “I know I ain’t owed the world, but I was owed more than what I _got,_ Al, and you fuckin’ _know_ it.” Tears were smudging her into a black and white blur, but there was no stopping this train now that they were on it. “I didn’ deserve the shit Joey did ta me, I didn’ deserve bein’ locked up in that tiny closet full’a crosses an’ left to puke my guts out, or any of the lashings, or the chains to hold me down durin’ those rituals ta ‘increase my power,’ or whatever bullshit that was, or ta have this plague pinned on me, or any of the rest of the shit I might be forgettin’ that Joey did ta me! And! They murdered Boris! Lemme repeat that again since you didn’ seem ta hear it, but _they murdered Boris!_ He didn’ like fightin’, he never wanted ta hurt a soul and I don’ even think he was capable of it; all he did was leave the manor grounds, and when the same goddamn people you now protect in yer stupid church found out, they hunted him down like- like an animal and tortured him and murdered him! They put his body _on fuckin’ display!_ I can see, jus’ _barely_ but I _can,_ his fuckin’ corpse from a few places in the manor, all cause a bunch of humans decided he didn’ deserve to live and the bullshit magic that brought us to life doesn’t allow bodies to decay or somethin’!”

“It hurt,” she whispered, rubbing at an eye. “It hurt finding out that he died. And like that. He didn’t deserve it, not ever. But I refuse to condemn an entire town full of people for the actions of some who I can’t even identify. I don’t know who killed him; I wouldn’t shelter them if I did know. I just know _I_ didn’t kill him, and that if I could, I’d bring his murderers to justice. His death isn’t my fault.”

 _“You abandoned us!”_ Bendy shrieked, tears streaming openly now, hands in fists. “Boris is dead, Al! He’s fuckin’- he’s dead! He didn’t deserve none’a that! But it happened anyway, and if you’d been there maybe he woulda survived!” With each word, her features grew calmer and calmer, harder and harder to read, and the more they did, the hotter he felt inside, ready to slug her. “You abandoned us and he _died!”_

“… You might be projecting a little, there,” Alice said, her voice a smooth sort of cool that didn’t sit well in the demon’s stomach. “Maybe if I’d been there, _maybe,_ he would be fine. But you were there. And you knew he was antsy, you knew he was tired of being cooped up in the manor, you knew all of that… but I know you, and I know you wouldn’t stop talking about how much you wanted to get out, either. I wasn’t there, but you were, and you didn’t keep a closer eye on him, or reel in your fantasy talk, or any other number of things to preempt the situation. At the end of the day, it’s ultimately the fault of the people who murdered him, but if either of _us_ are to blame at all, Bendy, it’s _you.”_

The world felt frozen. The sun was still out, but everything was so cold. His stomach felt hollow, and not just because of his squirrel diet.

“I think you better leave,” he rasped.

“I think I should,” came the icy reply. Without another word, she drew her veil up and spread her magic wings, leaving the tiny demon staring at nothing in the wake of the gust of wind her wings created from takeoff.

His legs gave out and he collapsed into sobs hard enough to wrack his whole tiny, thin body.


End file.
